“We live from one week to the next”
Bernie’s ex-partner said he was paying their mortgage but actually gambled and lost the money. He threatened to burn the house down, and she had to have him arrested. The house, in negative equity, was repossessed. Bernie was bankrupted. He failed to turn up for his access visits to their children, then took her to court over his parental rights.
“He’s a control freak,” she says. “I’m left with a legal bill of over £2,000. I just don’t have it. My parents do their best for me, but they are pensioners. I get my wages and I get tax credits, but by the time I pay my rent and my bills I am lucky if I have £6 at the end of the month.”
“I felt so isolated I was getting suicidal”
Tara, reeling from the break-up of her marriage, the death of her mother, and the suicide of her friend, felt unable to cope.
“Financially it got to the stage it was either keep a roof over our heads or eat. I started skipping meals, and I got really bad with depression,” she says.
“My entitlement to benefits is low and my rent is high. There is no help. All I get is employment support. It makes you feel like a failure not to be able to support your family. I felt so isolated I was getting suicidal.”
Debbie’s father was in and out of prison most of her life. “My mother struggled to raise us. I have mental-health problems, and I’ve spent half my life sitting in the house. I have two children. I am a good saver, so I manage on my benefits.
“I’m from the Protestant side of the road. I used to throw stones at the people over here. Now I wish more from my community would come over. It is more like a family than a community group. I know a fellow came through here and he’s at university. Now that the courses have stopped I am going to waste. Do they not want single mums with problems to get educated?”
“You have to count every penny”
Paula had a job in the health sector, and her husband has also always worked. She had an accident that left her disabled; social services trained her daughters, then just 12 and seven, to look after the baby. “They had no childhood,” she says.
Now her older girl has anorexia. Paula is on disability living allowance and has a pension. She is not entitled to tax credits. She is “worried sick” about the prospect of further cuts to her family’s income.
“You have to count every penny. All you hear is about people trying to milk the system. I want to train as a counsellor, to give something back to society. Something has to be done to stop the young going mad. I know women in their 40s that are grannies, and some of those children don’t even know who their daddy is.”
“My life has changed dramatically,” Bernadette says. “I went to a meeting at social services with my daughter and came out with custody of my two grandchildren.”
Her daughter and her partner lost their children because of their dependence on “street blues” – illegally sold diazepam. “There are no jobs here, nothing for that generation,” Bernadette says. “It is scary to think of more welfare cuts. I’m paid buttons by social services as it is.”
Josephine says the thought of further welfare cuts fills her with “sheer panic”. “We live from one week to the next,” she says. “I have poor health and I’m on benefits. My husband suffers from depression, and they are trying to close the wee daycare centre he goes to. He’s stressed out, in and out of hospital.
“I was a nervous wreck when I came [to the Glen complex]. I had no confidence. I couldn’t talk. It is amazing here. The more I come the more I can open up. If the activities here stop I can see myself sliding back down again.”
